Judging from my visits to this site over the past month, this race was over. Clinton was a sinking ship, and Obama had already begun the general election fight with McCain. Since February 5, a horde of posters on this site wrongly predicted that Obama would have the nomination signed, sealed, and delivered by March 4--even amidst warnings of a potential New Hampshire Redux. With an 11-state Obama winning streak, very few were predicting that the dynamics of the race would change. The herd mentality once again (just like post-Iowa) set in. But the race did change tonight -- and there is a lot to learn from what happened.
Clinton was right to stay in then, and she is right to stay in now. Despite the speculation about Clinton losing a hold of her base, tonight proved that she could regain her lost ground and even reach into Obama's demographics. More than anything else, Clinton's victories should once and for all end the chatter about whether she will or should exit the race. Why?
Because Clinton can win the nomination. While true that Obama remains ahead by about 130 pledged delegates (give or take a few, depending on the Texas results), the popular vote has considerably narrowed. When you add Florida and Michigan into the fray, Clinton is actually ahead in the popular vote by about 35,000 votes. One of the DNC's top priorities is to figure out how to deal with those two states--and they may very well hold new primaries, giving Clinton a new opportunity to bridge the pledged delegate and popular vote gaps.
If you remove the spin from both campaigns, then the most reasonable conclusion to draw is that this race is tied, and should continue not just for the sake of our party, but for the sake of democratic discourse. Sure, Obama can claim he is ahead by pointing to his narrow pledged delegate lead and abundance of states won; yet Clinton can point to her having won more of the big states and battleground states (see Ohio), the narrowing popular vote gap, and a sense of "buyer's remorse" setting in about Obama. Tonight's victories allow the Clinton camp to make that argument to the superdelegates (whose independent judgment, like it or not, counts in this race), and it guarantees that she stays in.
"But she will tear our party apart in trying to get the nomination!" is not a credible argument in our political discourse. Given what just happened, Democrats are clearly undecided about who they want as their nominee--so let Clinton and Obama carry on with the race! A Democratic race does not have to entail that the eventual nominee will be so bruised by the opponent that he/she will be red meat to the Republicans come the general election, and will thus automatically lose. That sounds like a leap of logic, and it is. The reality is that neither Clinton, Obama, nor McCain are perfect politicians (talk about an oxymoron...); their weaknesses will reveal themselves, and in the general they are bound to be bruised anyhow, just as in any general election, regardless of what happened in the preceding primary. So the lesson: Stop trying to subvert the process -- and let the race go on! We Democrats have an important decision to make. Keep in mind, too, who the real 'red meat' will be in November: John McCain.